ABSTRACT

Clinical treatment of orthopedic tissue injuries often requires xation via bone implant material. Implants produced from titanium and titanium alloys have been the gold standard in load-bearing orthopedic applications since many years because of their favorable biological and mechanical properties. The advantages of titanium and its alloys for biomedical devices include the following: (1) high corrosion resistance, (2) biocompatibility owing to the spontaneous formation of oxide layers, (3) high specic strength, and (4) lack of toxicity (Elias et al. 2008). Nevertheless, there is still room for improvement, particularly concerning the stabilization of the implant and the integration at the bone-biomaterial interface (Goodacre et al. 1999).